They showed the uncontrolled descent in real time (vs. slow motion). One of the most terrifying things I have ever seen! So I have to concur with running coach: Bend over, and kiss your ass goodbye.
If there were something on the ceiling that you could grab and hang onto with your arms and legs, you might have a chance. The elevator itself becomes your shock absorber.
You don’t have the strength and your body doesn’t have the resilience for this to make much difference. Like those movie stunts with one person holding onto another when there’s only one parachute. The holdee is dead meat. May as well just let go at the start and the holder will suffer fewer arm injuries.
The idea of pressing your back against a wall is interesting. You’re still going to collapse quite fast but it might reduce the odd injury or so.
As I’ve said before – if I ever build a teleporter, my first public demonstration will be teleporting myself and a fly at the same time.
And people in movies don’t always end up mixed up with a fly. One guy in Son of the Fly got mixed up with a guinea pig.
I think this, the parachute landing fall, is the best bet. (or however close you can get to that while in free fall). Hundreds of thousands of people in the military have spent decades using it and no one has come up with anything better so far.
It uses as much of the body’s non-vital parts that it can to absorb as much shock as possible. I don’t know how you could improve it.
I know the OP specifies freefall, but in reality, it’s impossible for it to be perfect freefall. At the very least, the elevator shaft is full of air. The elevator is also going to touch the edges of the shaft at least a little bit; that’s how the braking mechanisms work and the contact will still be there even if the mechanisms aren’t stopping you.
So the result might be greatly reduced apparent gravity, but it should be enough to make maneuvering possible.
Terribly dangerous! Stairs are a leading cause of injury and death.
And there’s also the fact that many elevators use hydraulics instead of cables. I’d guess that they’re even less likely to fail catastrophically.
A cable elevator free falls up not down, the counter weight free down. The only way a cable elevator can free fall down is the cables (normally 4 to 8) all fail at the same time and the cables on the emergency break also fail.
If you are in a cable elevator and it starts to free fall your best bet is to get on the floor and try to protect your hear. When the car hits the end of the shaft it is going to stop NOW. You will continue to move and fly up and hit the top of the passenger area of the car. The number of floors the car moves up, the weight of people in the car, the weight of the car, and the weight of the counter weight will determine the speed when the car comes to a sudden stop.
Now a hydraulic elevator can fall down. Until around 2000 most hydraulic elevators did not have any free fall safety break.
With multiple cables the chances of a catastrophe failure is slim.
With a hydraulic the piping from the valve to the jack can fail at any fitting.
If it is an old style jack it is possible to have a failure where the end of the jack has the cap is welded.
Hydraulic elevators are considered so safe they don’t need additional brakes. Regular elevators usually have safety features that make sure they won’t fall even when all the cables break.
If you’re still connected to the counterweight, you’re not free-falling. And the counterweight is designed to be approximately equal to the average weight of the elevator car when it’s in use, and so whether the car would be pulled upward or downward in such a situation depends on whether it’s loaded more or less than average.
But they are not safer because of the lack of safeties. For a cable elevator to free fall would take several systems failing at the same time. A hydraulic elevator can free fall one of several parts fail.
A big steel pipe filled with oil doesn’t really have too many failure modes. If it springs a leak somewhere, the oil will rush out and the elevator will drop, but considering the speed of oil rushing, that’s a far cry from anything that can possibly be considered free fall.
The most insane thing about this thread is why someone did not post the famous "Need answer fast?"meme
This topic jogged my memory. One of the book accounts of the world trade center disaster talked about elevators plunging into the basement, killing the passengers onboard. Apparentlythis happened - those safety brakes are not perfect.
A number of other people were killed because the elevators have a mechanism that locks the doors and they will remain locked if power is lost. This is less than ideal - it should be possible for someone trapped in an elevator to escape.
Well of course the WTC elevators plunged into the basement. The whole building plunged into the basement. What would you expect, an elevator car remaining suspended on a single cable sticking straight up into empty air?
If you skimmed the linked article, it refers to two of the express elevators plunging and killing 40 people from the deceleration at the bottom. This was long before the building collapsed - the cables were cut by the aircraft impacts, and the safety brakes failed to work properly. 4 people survived.